Two giant pandas sent to Qatar as a gift from China ahead of the World Cup have arrived in the Gulf state.
The bears will be kept in an enclosure designed to replicate the dense forests of China’s mountainous Sichuan province where they live.
Eight hundred kilograms of fresh bamboo will be flown in each week to feed them, AP reported.
The pandas were given new Arabic names before making the journey
Suhail, a 130kg male, was previously known as Jing Jing, while Soraya, a 70kg female, was called Si Hai.
They face 21 days of quarantine with two keepers after their arrival, said Al Khor's zoological director Tim Bouts.
"In a few weeks, or in a month's time, they will be ready to be shown to the world," he said.
Authorities have not yet said whether a new Panda House will be ready by the time the World Cup starts.
Qatar is expecting 1.2 million visitors for the month-long Fifa World Cup beginning on November 20. The gas-rich Gulf nation will be the first Arab country to host the world’s biggest sporting event.
“There was a lot of thinking that went into this building to make it, I think, the best building for pandas in the world,” Mr Bouts said.
Pandas are one of the world’s most threatened species, rarely reproducing in the wild. They rely on a diet of bamboo in the mountains of western China.
An estimated 1,800 pandas live in the wild, while another 500 are in zoos or reserves, mostly in Sichuan.
They are the unofficial national mascot of China, which has gifted pandas to 20 countries.
China’s ambassador to Qatar, Zhou Jian, said the two pandas “will live a happy life here and bring more happiness, joy and love to the people of Qatar and [the] world”.
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